Buzzfeed article on Trump/Russia

[7th]

Word is these reports are bogus "fake news" and Trump slammed the media yet again today for trying to drag him through the mud.  I think the media have yet to realize Trump is a popular figure like Ozzy or Cartman.  The worse he is or the uglier he is painted, the more people love him, the more his name is spoken, and the more support he gets.  Meanwhile, it appears he really is just interested in fixing a woefully corrupt government installed by decades of bad management.  He's actually working for things that ultimately benefit the people, yet the people are sharpening their pitchforks.  Typical groupthink stupidity really. 

[RuRoRul]

Following this story last night, I found it difficult to sift through the massive amounts of bullshit (with so many commenters immediately jumping to "it's nothing!" or "lock him up!" and doing everything to obfuscate the facts). So in the spirit of trying to have clean discussion in the newly re-opened section here, I'm just going to post my understanding of what the story actually is, in case it is helpful to anyone else.

1. Research on Trump was performed by a private company, originally hired on behalf of Republican primary opponents then employed by Democrats after the primary was over. This company employed the "former MI6 official with ties to Russia" to conduct the research. This research is ostensibly the source of the 35 pages of memos that was published by Buzzfeed (so worth noting I think that is this document is not purported to be a government intelligence document).

2. The memos from this research ended up being known to US intelligence and numerous politicians and journalists last year (possibly via the British government) before the election. However, probably since the claims were so spectacular and were unverified, few news outlets published anything from them. An exception was Mother Jones which published a story on 31 October saying that a veteran spy from a Western nation had provided information on Trump's connection with Russia to the FBI. Since they were the only organisation (as far as I know) that published anything on it at the time and they couldn't provide further evidence, it got buried by more concrete stories and became just another rumour.

3. After the election, as the discussion regarding Russian interference in the election increased, the memos from the oppo research were circulating around politicians and journalists. John McCain, apparently bothered enough by their contents to think they needed to be investigated further, personally presented them to the director of the FBI (as I understand it the FBI probably already had them and were carrying out their own investigation).

4. Shortly after this, an intelligence briefing was presented to President Obama and President-Elect Trump on the subject of the investigation into the Russian interference in the election. The existence and information contained in the memos was part of the briefing (though not the only content).

5. CNN, aware of the existence of this intelligence briefing and that the memos (which they had had for some time but felt unable to report on until further investigation could confirm the claims) were being discussed, reported , factually, that Obama and Trump were briefed on the information contained in the memos, and described the gist of some of that information.

6. Buzzfeed then published the memos in their entirety - noting that they were unverified and may contain inaccuracy, but claiming that they were "letting the people decide".

So the important points worth mentioning that from what I have seen might get lost in the chaos or amongst other disinformation are that the "memos" published by Buzzfeed aren't claimed to be government documents, but oppo research conducted by a veteran British MI6 official (who has been described as reliable and has the credentials to at least carry out information like this by numerous journalists and government officials), and that the story broke by CNN was not simply the content of the memos, but rather that the president and president-elect had been briefed by US intelligence leaders about information which *included* those memos. Also the story reported by CNN is distinct from the dump of the memos by Buzzfeed.

There is also another narrative which I saw emerge, one which involves a site which is banned here (a rule I agree with in principle as I consider it to be basically the mainstream scumhole of the internet, but that makes discussing this element of the story a little difficult ). Without going into specifics that would break a rule, here is my understanding of this narrative and the facts that support it.

1. At some point in October, an anonymous poster on this unmentionable site claimed to have convinced a journalist (I believe a right-wing, "Never Trump" type) that there was going to be another leak of something related to Trump, possibly another sex tape. The idea was that journalists would be fooled and believe someting then be embarassed, "for the lulz" (it's important to note that stuff like this is a common feature of this site - as is anonymous posters posting complete bullshit).

2. After Mother Jones posted the story at the end of October, an anonymous poster posted on the unmentionable site that his attempt to fool the media had been successful, that they had took his information and "added a Russian spy angle to it" and ran with it. Many kekz were had.

3. Once the CNN / Buzzfeed story broke, the connection with the Mother Jones story and the unmentionable site was made... and there was a massive deluge of comments around the internet claiming that the mainstream media had been trolled, and that the memos were actualy produced by a troll who talked about it on the unmentionable site (these comments also conflated this document with actual fake documents and stories recently produced, which Buzzfeed didn't actually report). *This next part is my complete personal impression, but witnessing the volume and nature of comments last night that attempted to push the narrative that the entire thing was the media / intelligence services being fooled by trolls, I was very much reminded of the type of trolling usually associated with the unmentionable site trolls that they use to attempt to fool people.

You can draw your own conclusions, but personally I don't think the "unmentionable site narrative" holds up at all, and the evidence for it is extremely slim. (For example, note that the post that supposedly proves that trolls were responsible for providing the information actually says that it was the media that added the "Russian spy stuff"... which makes it kind of hard to claim that the troll provided the memo full of Russian spy stuff ). Plus, if the intent was genuinely to fool the media, why work so hard to make sure everyone is aware that the story is "false" as soon as you have fooled them? In my opinion if the unmentionable site trolls manage to "fool" anyone, it is by convincing people that the story is based on deliberately made up evidence intended to fool the media. (Also I would say that convincing people of this falsehood works better for their beloved Trump, rather than convincing the media to run extremely embarassing stories about Trump).

That's my take on the actual timeline and facts of what the story actually is, in terms of who is actually saying what - plus a little editorialising by me, but I hope the parts that are meant to be my personal impression rather than fact are clear enough. It took me a little while to get straight what was actually being reported and by who, so hopefully it is of some help to someone . If there are any corrections please let me know as I think it'd be helpful if we were all at least discussing the same thing.

[lonestar]

Oh what an exciting time to be alive....

True or not, we are actually having talks about a president elect  being into Russian hookers engaging in water sports, a mere 9 days before being inaugurated. And Twitler is behaving like the spoiled little brat he is. So attention to the whole world, our president to be can be riled with the simplest of accusations, it is officially open season on him.


Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

[RuRoRul]

I just came across a story by Washington Post about the journey of this document and its allegations into the public domain, seems a pretty fair and objective piece of this, also contains some new quotes from US intelligence officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/decision-to-brief-trump-on-allegations-brought-a-secret-and-unsubstantiated-dossier-into-the-public-domain/2017/01/11/275a3a6c-d830-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?utm_term=.72efca769987

It seems a two page summary of the document was attached to an intelligence briefing to the president and president-elect on Russian interference (so the memos were not the sole or even the main content of the actual briefing). And in quotes in this story, it is being framed as being as much about informing the president of the fact that this document was so widely circulated and hence the allegations were out there as anything else.

When the story broke that the memos were bring discussed at the level of the heads of US intelligence and the president, Buzzfeed went ahead and dumped the whole document. While I am glad we can in fact see what is in there if all of the media were going to be talking about it and saying "we have seen this thing", ultimately it could turn out pretty badly as, even if this document was the real thing containing some true and damning stuff, it would still probably contain some false stuff, and some sensational stuff that could probably never be confirmed even if it is true.

In any case, Trump's handling of it is expectedly terrible. Since we know he is willing to blatantly lie, it would have been so easy to say "Yes, US intelligence briefed me about the report. They told me 'President Trump, you're terrific, you're so great, but some bad hombres out there have been circulating this horrible stuff about you - and it's not true by the way, absolutely not true - and we just thought you should know because it's about it because some losers out there might try to attack you with these lies'." Even if it wasnt 100% true, it is still closer to the truth than his angle that the intelligence services leaked this thing that journalists already had for months, and would make him look pretty good. But I suppose he wants to start his campaign against the free press and those within the intelligence community that aren't loyalists in earnest.

[RuRoRul]

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

Yeah, this is the most troubling aspect of his press conference in my view. He isn't just making an enemy of one news organisation - he is taking the first steps towards basically not bring accountable to the press at all. He can just say "You're fake news!" to CNN and BBC (as a Brit I was even more annoyed by this one ) then take a question from Breitbart about how he will "reform the press". Meanwhile CNN reporter is told he will be thrown out if he tries to push to get a question again. If Trump is allowed to get away with it, it won't be long before he literally can just deal exclusively with media he likes (possibly even only those owned and controlled by his own people), while the "fake news" (i.e. outlets he does not like or that question him) are denied access. And while that may please the portion of the population that only wants to hear positive coverage of Trump for a short while, ultimately it would be disastrous for the people.

I hope that the media and at least most of the people can call bullshit on this, putting hyper-partisanship aside for once. That may be happening already (I hear Fox News was defending the CNN reporter on their channel). But people need to be very vigilant about this IMO. You thought that the "biased, lame-stream media" was bad at providing real coverage to hold a corrupt government accountable? Wait until you end up with literal state run propaganda (+ Donald's Tweets) as your only coverage.

[7th]

True or not, we are actually having talks about a president elect  being into Russian hookers engaging in water sports, a mere 9 days before being inaugurated.

Just understand that it was the Clinton Administration that gave us this political media landscape.  Before Billary hit the scene in the 90s, politics news was pretty much stale and boring.  Now it's just tabloid entertainment and the Clintons were the first family that spearheaded smut politics into the mainstream.

I also like how credit is being lent to the idea of Trump engaging with Russian hookers, when in fact, he is a billionaire with an immigrant supermodel wife and it is common knowledge he is/was a womanizing hound dog.  Sure, he's probably laid pipe all over the globe, and he probably paid for it half the time (really, who's gonna fuck that haircut for free?).  Are people really believing that he's not every bit as sleazy as any other billionaire playboy?  I am a Trump supporter and I don't rule it out.  Would anyone be shocked to find out the guy who said "they'll let you grab..." hasn't taken advantage of his wealth and position in the past?  BUT, the left can't hold him to a presidential standard they abolished so Bill Clinton could exercise his pecker wherever he wanted. 

As for the CNN scum, I completely applaud Trump for shutting him down.  CNN stands for Credibility Not Necessary, and they should be filed under fake news for most of their reporting.  Just about every piece I read or saw from them during the election process was biased to hell, skewed beyond facts, and intentionally architected to promote a secular progressive agenda - a truly fascist movement that aims to regulate speech and divide by special interests.  Obama's movement, Clinton's movement, now a defunct movement globally. :-) 






 

       

[7th]

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

Yeah, this is the most troubling aspect of his press conference in my view.

So were you complaining about Obama treating Fox News the same way for the last 8 years?  (Except the Fox People were never as unprofessional in a press conference as the CNN flunky was, so Obama never had to spank them so hard.)

[Chino]

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

Yeah, this is the most troubling aspect of his press conference in my view.

So were you complaining about Obama treating Fox News the same way for the last 8 years?  (Except the Fox People were never as unprofessional in a press conference as the CNN flunky was, so Obama never had to spank them so hard.)

That was never said. You're implying that and making accusations. Posts like that were what got this sub closed. And not for nothing, Obama let Fox News in his home.

[El Barto]

I like that right after calling out the CNN guy for being fake news he fielded a question from Breitbart.

In any event, R3's excellent synopsis sounds about like what I took out of all of this. All of the news agencies sat on the report until it showed up in a PDB and then it became newsworthy.


edit: Also, when the Obama white house started to freeze out FOX news, the entire press corps collectively stood up for them. The other networks, including CNN, refused to conduct an interview the white house was pushing until it agreed to include FOX, in what was seen as a victory against Obama.  I'll be interested to see if FOX makes a stand for them here. It might and it might not. By necessity FOX tries to hold itself up as classy and professional and this is something it should be on. At the same time Grabby has his Twitter and Breitbart in his pocket, so toeing the Trump line might be important for maintaining its relevance as the republican mouthpiece.

[KevShmev]

And not for nothing, Obama let Fox News in his home.

While Obama did a couple of interviews with O'Reilly, he basically spent the last eight years trashing and ignoring Fox News. Democrats routinely refer to it as Faux News, so I think, on some level, this is Trump mocking that, and CNN is an easy target since they were in the tank for Hillary as much as you possibly could be.

I wish someone less childish was the one doing it, but I am always in favor of someone calling out the media.  The media is still throwing a fit over the election results, and as unlikable as Trump is, he still has higher approval ratings than the media as a whole, which isn't saying much.

[millahh]

And not for nothing, Obama let Fox News in his home.

While Obama did a couple of interviews with O'Reilly, he basically spent the last eight years trashing and ignoring Fox News. Democrats routinely refer to it as Faux News, so I think, on some level, this is Trump mocking that, and CNN is an easy target since they were in the tank for Hillary as much as you possibly could be.
.

CNN had Lewandowski on their payroll, and never remotely challenged any of his bullshit...they were just a much an unquestioning megaphone for Trump's bullshit as Hillary's, just in different ways.

CNN is terrible, not because of bias, but because it is completely brain-dead garbage, somehow passing itself off as journalism.  It's the cable version of USA Today (and even that is giving it too much credit).

[cramx3]

I'll be interested to see if FOX makes a stand for them here.

Shepard Smith did  http://theweek.com/speedreads/672744/foxs-shepard-smith-defends-cnn-against-donald-trumps-belittling

Also, I don't trust CNN after this past year so labelling them as "fake news" seems ok to me, didn't see what Trump did to the reporter, but I still think a president should hold himself to a better standard than arguing with a reporter publicly.

[El Barto]

I'll be interested to see if FOX makes a stand for them here.

Shepard Smith did  http://theweek.com/speedreads/672744/foxs-shepard-smith-defends-cnn-against-donald-trumps-belittling

Also, I don't trust CNN after this past year so labelling them as "fake news" seems ok to me, didn't see what Trump did to the reporter, but I still think a president should hold himself to a better standard than arguing with a reporter publicly.

I'm glad FOX did that and it's a pretty definitive statement. It's also a 30 second statement buried within quite a bit of commentary saying Trump was right and how Acosta owes everybody an apology.

[XJDenton]

CNN has its faults as a news agency, but Trumps behaviour towards them in the press conference was abhorrent. As for the allegations, well, I'll wait and see if anything else leaks. Claims like that...if true somebody has evidence lying about.

[Stadler]

Plus, if the intent was genuinely to fool the media, why work so hard to make sure everyone is aware that the story is "false" as soon as you have fooled them?

Unless I'm misunderstanding you (which is possible), why WOULDN'T you?  If you're going to fool the media, the BEST way is to get them to run with fake news as if it was real, and once they run, why not show that it's fake?   Of all you wrote, this was the one sentence that rung completely false to me.  I would expect them to make sure everyone knew it was "fake" immediately to show that the media doesn't give a shit about veracity, just sensationalism. 

[Stadler]

Oh what an exciting time to be alive....

True or not, we are actually having talks about a president elect  being into Russian hookers engaging in water sports, a mere 9 days before being inaugurated. And Twitler is behaving like the spoiled little brat he is. So attention to the whole world, our president to be can be riled with the simplest of accusations, it is officially open season on him.

As opposed to having a SITTING President sticking cigars who knows where in the Oval Office.  Or whatever skeleton Hillary has in her closet. 

Look, I'm no Trump guy, didn't vote for him, don't like him now, and want to see his Twitter feed destroyed immediately (I'm very against Twitter as a political tool; it's an Orwellian mechanism to dumb down the masses, nothing more) but at least be fair.   Nothing we're seeing here is unique to Trump, and nothing here isn't in some way massively hypocritical.   

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

But of course there are two sides to the story.  The reporter wouldn't let it go, and I have heard at least one report that the reporter in question has played that game before, and was in danger of losing his press credentials for being less than professional at other Presidential press conferences (with the current guy). 

So while I get it, it all has to be on Trump because he's well, orange, but the TRUTH is often not as black and white.   Just be fair.  You've got plenty already to go after Trump about; you don't need to pile on with hypocritical one-sided attacks.

[mikeyd23]

CNN has its faults as a news agency, but Trumps behaviour towards them in the press conference was abhorrent. As for the allegations, well, I'll wait and see if anything else leaks. Claims like that...if true somebody has evidence lying about.

So you don't think that reporter was out of line continuously interrupting the President-Elect of the United States? 

[Stadler]

Since we know he is willing to blatantly lie,

And we know this how? 

Why the focus on Trump?  If Obama (and by extension, Hillary) knew of this months ago, why is it an issue now?  THEY opted to use it for political expediency, and now it's blowing up.   There's a lot of blame to go around here, not just at Trump (who I do concede could be handling this better).

I used to watch SNL with my daughter; I would tape it, and we would watch it on nights she was at my house (I'm divorced from her mom).  Well, she went off to boarding school this past year, so I had about 30 episodes, dating back to over a year ago, and I decided to burn some of them off to make some space.    More than any other thing, I found myself checking the "Original Air" date, because I was blown away at what was known when.   Colin Jost was making jokes about Russian hackers, and "Hillary" (Kate McKinnon) was making jokes about Putin and Russia well over six months before the election.  This wasn't a case of "Russia hacked us, released all this heretofore unknown info days before the election, and swayed the election to Trump!"   All this stuff was known and baked into the numbers.  We're just watching the McCarthy-esque witch hunt happening now.  Nothing more.

[Stadler]

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

Yeah, this is the most troubling aspect of his press conference in my view. He isn't just making an enemy of one news organisation - he is taking the first steps towards basically not bring accountable to the press at all. He can just say "You're fake news!" to CNN and BBC (as a Brit I was even more annoyed by this one ) then take a question from Breitbart about how he will "reform the press". Meanwhile CNN reporter is told he will be thrown out if he tries to push to get a question again. If Trump is allowed to get away with it, it won't be long before he literally can just deal exclusively with media he likes (possibly even only those owned and controlled by his own people), while the "fake news" (i.e. outlets he does not like or that question him) are denied access. And while that may please the portion of the population that only wants to hear positive coverage of Trump for a short while, ultimately it would be disastrous for the people.

I hope that the media and at least most of the people can call bullshit on this, putting hyper-partisanship aside for once. That may be happening already (I hear Fox News was defending the CNN reporter on their channel). But people need to be very vigilant about this IMO. You thought that the "biased, lame-stream media" was bad at providing real coverage to hold a corrupt government accountable? Wait until you end up with literal state run propaganda (+ Donald's Tweets) as your only coverage.

Not to you, personally RuRoRul, but as a general point:  let's not get too wrapped up in the moment here.  We are watching one volley in a tennis match and trying to judge the entire match.   The press is very powerful.  VERY powerful.  Trump can take them on, sure, but CNN has 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to prove their veracity and integrity.  This is a DEBATE.   Debates have pro and con and rebuttal.   We're watching one exchange.    Trump can scream "FAKE NEWS!" all day long, but there WILL be real news on that network, and people can make their own determination.   

We can't worry about the Trump supporter who isn't listening to reason or fact and has their mind made up, any more than we can worry about the Bernie supporter that isn't interested in facts or reasons and STILL believes that we can pay for "free college" by just taxing the 1% on their securities transactions.   

[Stadler]

And not for nothing, Obama let Fox News in his home.

While Obama did a couple of interviews with O'Reilly, he basically spent the last eight years trashing and ignoring Fox News. Democrats routinely refer to it as Faux News, so I think, on some level, this is Trump mocking that, and CNN is an easy target since they were in the tank for Hillary as much as you possibly could be.

I wish someone less childish was the one doing it, but I am always in favor of someone calling out the media.  The media is still throwing a fit over the election results, and as unlikable as Trump is, he still has higher approval ratings than the media as a whole, which isn't saying much.

Obama went so far as to BLAME Fox News for the election loss.   And yet, almost* every study on the matter shows that Fox News is far less biased than either CNN or (the industry standard for liberal media bias) MSNBC.   It's just that when it does skew, it skews right, and since there are so few right-skewing media outlets (and the bulk of media outlets are skewed slightly left), it LOOKS more biased than it really is.

* I say "almost" to be fair; I know of NO study that doesn't back this up, but I'm sure there is at least one out there somewhere.

[Stadler]

I'll be interested to see if FOX makes a stand for them here.

Shepard Smith did  http://theweek.com/speedreads/672744/foxs-shepard-smith-defends-cnn-against-donald-trumps-belittling

Also, I don't trust CNN after this past year so labelling them as "fake news" seems ok to me, didn't see what Trump did to the reporter, but I still think a president should hold himself to a better standard than arguing with a reporter publicly.

Please don't mistake this; I think Shep Smith was right as rain to stick up for CNN, so I'm not at all calling on that, but I am saying that it doesn't surprise me that it was Smith; he makes no bones about his politics, which are far more left than most people (even conservatives) would expect.  He's not Trump sycophant, by any stretch.

[RuRoRul]

Plus, if the intent was genuinely to fool the media, why work so hard to make sure everyone is aware that the story is "false" as soon as you have fooled them?

Unless I'm misunderstanding you (which is possible), why WOULDN'T you?  If you're going to fool the media, the BEST way is to get them to run with fake news as if it was real, and once they run, why not show that it's fake?   Of all you wrote, this was the one sentence that rung completely false to me.  I would expect them to make sure everyone knew it was "fake" immediately to show that the media doesn't give a shit about veracity, just sensationalism.

I think my phrasing might be misleading... You're right, of course if the idea is to troll the media and people by convincing them to report and believe something ridiculous to end up with egg on their face, you have to expose that the ridiculous thing was fake. The part that didn't make sense to me, and the only part I'd quibble with in your description, is the timing, and precisely what "immediately" means. I think you would want to reveal that it's a fake *after* the media has ran with it and people have bought it, where as my impression (it is obviously hard to draw a firm line with this so it will be subjective) was that the attempt to convince people it was fake was happening *during* the time when the story was breaking. More like an attempt to convince people "don't pay attention to this story, it's fake!" before they ever got the chance to buy into it, rather than an attempt to first fool people into reporting on / believing the story then showing they'd been fooled.

As I say that's just my personal impression, but considering that it has now been confirmed by so many sources that there is indeed a document from a private intelligence company that researched Trump, I'm inclined to think my initial impression was right. The real "troll job" here by the unmentionables was successfully putting the idea that the whole thing was a "troll job" by them out into the public consciousness and muddying the waters. Even when the exact details of the story are entirely documented (and regardless of whether  it turned out that every allegation against Trump, no matter where it came from, was categorically proven false), I'll bet that years later you will still see comments on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or wherever referring to that time that CNN was trolled into reporting stuff by the unmentionable site, even if it never happened.

[bosk1]

Was much more pissed when he shut down the CNN reporter during his press conference today. Not only is that just not presidential, we pay you to deal with the tough problems man...that's like your fucking job... but you just made an enemy of a whole news organization. Have fun with that one Twitler.

Yeah, this is the most troubling aspect of his press conference in my view.

So were you complaining about Obama treating Fox News the same way for the last 8 years?  (Except the Fox People were never as unprofessional in a press conference as the CNN flunky was, so Obama never had to spank them so hard.)

Posts like that were what got this sub closed. 

Yes.  Posts like 7th's and Lonestar's.  So, please, keep it classy or keep silent.  I won't keep asking.

[bosk1]

I just came across a story by Washington Post about the journey of this document and its allegations into the public domain, seems a pretty fair and objective piece of this, also contains some new quotes from US intelligence officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/decision-to-brief-trump-on-allegations-brought-a-secret-and-unsubstantiated-dossier-into-the-public-domain/2017/01/11/275a3a6c-d830-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?utm_term=.72efca769987

It seems a two page summary of the document was attached to an intelligence briefing to the president and president-elect on Russian interference (so the memos were not the sole or even the main content of the actual briefing). And in quotes in this story, it is being framed as being as much about informing the president of the fact that this document was so widely circulated and hence the allegations were out there as anything else.

The bolded is what makes the current state of the story somewhat misleading.  The summary was referenced in a briefing by the intelligence team.  It was NOT an "intelligence briefing."  Obama's chief of intelligence went on record as specifically saying that they made it clear that it was NOT "intelligence," but, as you said in your last sentence, was summarized and simply put out there as an FYI that the rumor was circulating.  And frankly, it makes sense that they didn't actually give the dossier to Trump or Obama.  That way, both could truthfully deny having actually seen it. 

[RuRoRul]

Since we know he is willing to blatantly lie,

And we know this how? 

Why the focus on Trump?  If Obama (and by extension, Hillary) knew of this months ago, why is it an issue now?  THEY opted to use it for political expediency, and now it's blowing up.   There's a lot of blame to go around here, not just at Trump (who I do concede could be handling this better).

If we can't agree on common ground that Donald Trump is at least willing to lie, I'm not sure we will really be able to get anywhere . To be clear I am definitely not saying Trump is the only politician willing to lie, and I was not even necessarily criticising him for lying. I was criticising the poor strategy in the way he handled it, as I think it would have been a much smarter move to say "Yes, I was briefed on this by intelligence agencies... they wanted to tell me about it because they wanted me to know that these proven false allegations were out there and I might need to deal with them." (That may or may not be exactly what US intelligence told him, which was why I mentioned that it might require being comfortable with lying). Instead he denied everything, railed at the intelligence community for leaking documents (which isn't what happened as the media already had the memos) and claimed CNN's story was untrue (which it wasn't - whether it was responsible journalism to call attention to the memos is a different question, but the fact that they were being discussed by US intelligence and POTUS / PEOTUS was true). I have noticed that Trump surrogates seem to be starting to move onto the "intelligence agencies wanted to tell Trump about it because it wasn't true" approach, but if Trump was smart that would have been his play right from the start.

The focus on Trump here is purely about how he handled questions about the reports as President Elect. Not trying to blame one politician or the other for anything (the press already had the memos before the election, and they didn't get them from Obama or Hilary).

let's not get too wrapped up in the moment here.  We are watching one volley in a tennis match and trying to judge the entire match.   The press is very powerful.  VERY powerful.  Trump can take them on, sure, but CNN has 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to prove their veracity and integrity.  This is a DEBATE.   Debates have pro and con and rebuttal.   We're watching one exchange.    Trump can scream "FAKE NEWS!" all day long, but there WILL be real news on that network, and people can make their own determination.   

I definitely don't want to sound as though I am getting carried away or exaggerating things that are happening now. Trump had a bit of bickering with a CNN reporter when he denied them a question and the reporter kept shouting out to him trying to be heard. That is indeed all that happened. For now. However, one of the main points about Trump was that, for better or worse, he is a different beast to the presidents that came before him. The number of times that something about his candidacy or election has been "unprecedented" is beyond count. We can't get ahead of ourselves, sure, but neither can we just dismiss small steps towards something more extreme just because we think that it's something that will never, can never, change. You say that major media organisations can always fight back or debate against Trump if he has a conflict with them, which is true now... but what if that news network can't report real news about the government because they are denied access? What if the government uses its power to shut down certain outlets because they are accused of being "fake news"? Sounds extreme? Of course it is, and claiming that we are near that stage now would be untrue. But given all the other extreme and unprecedented events we have seen unfold, I don't think we can approach it with the attitude of "don't worry, that could never actually happen"... instead perhaps with "that will not happen, because we won't let it". That has to mean being willing to reasonably call out the small steps towards the extreme when we see them.

[bosk1]

Well, again, I think you are making this into something it isn't.  As I understand it, he wasn't truly "briefed" on it, and it wasn't something that was being looked at seriously by intelligence agencies as intelligence.  Obama's head of intelligence said as much.  So I'm not sure how Trump supposedly lied here.  Not that he doesn't or isn't capable.  But I don't see it here. 

I feel a lot like when I was having a "discussion" with my mom about him back in March of last year.  She was ranting about a lot of things that made him a bad candidate, and I mostly agreed, up to the point where she insisted that he is obviously and demonstrably a racist, and that that is proven, indisputable fact.  I basically said, "whoa, let's pump the brakes here for a second.  I kinda feel like he might have racist tendencies too.  But I haven't seen anything that actually shows that he is a racist.  What are you aware of that makes him 'obviously and demonstrably' a racist?  I'm not aware of any of that."  There was a lot of back and forth and misinformation.  But at the end of the discussion, we were where I thought we would be:  There was stuff that maybe, could possibly indirectly indicate some racist tendencies.  Maybe.  But nothing that made him obviously, demonstrably, and indisputably a racist. 

Similarly, I'm not seeing anything that clearly indicates a lie here either.  What am I missing?

[El Barto]

I don't see any deliberate actual lying here. At the same time I don't see how anybody could actually argue against the man's complete indifference to the truth. He says whatever the hell he wants with absolutely no care in the world as to whether or not it's true.

[Chino]

Speaking of lying... make of this what you will.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-press-conference-folders-business-plan-empire-blank-fake-handover-donald-jr-eric-a7523426.html

[RuRoRul]

Re: Lying - I was just saying that approaching any questions in his press conference with "Yes, I was told about the memos and their allegations. The intelligence services told me about them because they are 100% false but they felt they had to inform me they are out there," would have been a better move strategically, whether or not it was the complete truth (I personally don't know exactly what intelligence leaders might have said so I couldn't say whether that was the complete truth or not). The part about Trump being a liar was just me commenting that I figured he would be comfortable with massaging the truth if it was necessary .

I just saw that Trump is now saying essentially that on Twitter, so looks like his team might have wised up to that strategy.

In other news, some info on the former MI6 official responsible for the research, since his name is already out there:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38591382

[jsbru]

True or not, we are actually having talks about a president elect  being into Russian hookers engaging in water sports, a mere 9 days before being inaugurated.

Just understand that it was the Clinton Administration that gave us this political media landscape.  Before Billary hit the scene in the 90s, politics news was pretty much stale and boring.  Now it's just tabloid entertainment and the Clintons were the first family that spearheaded smut politics into the mainstream.

I also like how credit is being lent to the idea of Trump engaging with Russian hookers, when in fact, he is a billionaire with an immigrant supermodel wife and it is common knowledge he is/was a womanizing hound dog.  Sure, he's probably laid pipe all over the globe, and he probably paid for it half the time (really, who's gonna fuck that haircut for free?).  Are people really believing that he's not every bit as sleazy as any other billionaire playboy?  I am a Trump supporter and I don't rule it out.  Would anyone be shocked to find out the guy who said "they'll let you grab..." hasn't taken advantage of his wealth and position in the past?  BUT, the left can't hold him to a presidential standard they abolished so Bill Clinton could exercise his pecker wherever he wanted. 

What I don't get is that you admit all this, but that it doesn't bother you.

Self-restraint is one of the key competencies for the job of POTUS.  It's not just one that's "nice to have."  It's basically an essential quality that will make or break you as a President.

Not just his sexcapades, but his behavior toward the media and his behavior on Twitter suggests that this man has none.

It's going to be an entertaining (in a sad, dark way) four years watching Americans figure out just how important it is.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

One thing that continues to bug me about Trump speaking to the public is his continued use of the words "Trust me".  I cynically believe that anybody who has to constantly urge me to trust them, trust them, trust them, especially when weathering bad press, is probably not somebody I feel comfortable ACTUALLY trusting.

[cramx3]

In other news, some info on the former MI6 official responsible for the research, since his name is already out there:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38591382

As much as this guy may have been labelled as competent, it seems his report did not come from our government which to me makes it at least appear like a witch hunt, plus this nugget in that article:

However, as Mr Steele was now working in the private sector, our correspondent said, there was "probably a fair bit of money involved" in the commissioning of the reports.

Yea, I don't find his report to be reputable and obviously neither did our government, yet buzzfeed did.

[cramx3]

One thing that continues to bug me about Trump speaking to the public is his continued use of the words "Trust me".  I cynically believe that anybody who has to constantly urge me to trust them, trust them, trust them, especially when weathering bad press, is probably not somebody I feel comfortable ACTUALLY trusting.

Totally agree with this.  It's also why I feel Bill O'Reilly is THE SPIN ZONE because he advertises himself as the no spin zone.  If you have to say it, then to me, it's because that's not what you are doing.  Like some sort of reverse psychology.

[bosk1]

Yea, I don't find his report to be reputable and obviously neither did our government, yet buzzfeed did.

Not only that, but the rest of the mainstream media (which had been largely conducting themselves no better than tabloids during most of the election cycle) didn't find it reputable enough to print either.  Remember, they all had it for months and had not seen fit to print it.  It was only after Buzzfeed posted it and then CNN linked to Buzzfeed posting it that the other news outlets did the same, replete with caveats about the sources being unsubstantiated.  To me, that speaks volumes.

[cramx3]

Yea, I don't find his report to be reputable and obviously neither did our government, yet buzzfeed did.

Not only that, but the rest of the mainstream media (which had been largely conducting themselves no better than tabloids during most of the election cycle) didn't find it reputable enough to print either.  Remember, they all had it for months and had not seen fit to print it.  It was only after Buzzfeed posted it and then CNN linked to Buzzfeed posting it that the other news outlets did the same, replete with caveats about the sources being unsubstantiated.  To me, that speaks volumes.

Yup, it honestly had made me think that some of these news outlets are in cohorts.  I mean, buzzfeed has not been known to make headline political news and obviously does not have journalistic integrity, but as soon as they post it, the rest of the news outlets jump on it (even though they had it for awhile and didn't report it).  But all these outlets are known for disliking Trump, so getting this out there helps their political cause plus gains tons of clicks/views to generate ad money.  While NONE of what I just said is fact and it really just goes back to what I said in the OP in that it makes me feel even less trust worthy of the media.